Versa SASE Speeds Secure Connectivity Deployments At The Edge, Remote Locations

A SASE architecture can translate to improved security and network performance for less money compared to separate SD-WAN, routing, and security solutions that need to be integrated and managed, according to SASE specialist Versa Networks.

Secure access service edge (SASE) means improved security and network performance for less money compared to standalone SD-WAN, routing, and security solutions. This comes at a time when businesses need a secure connectivity boost in more locations than ever before, including for teleworkers and at the edge of the network, according to Versa Networks.

“There’s more strategic applications now being done, in essence, at the service edge, and you have to secure that,” said Sydney Guerrero, vice president of business development for Orion Innovation, a Edison, N.J.-based solution provider selling SASE today. ”Our clients are needing to transform how they do business, so you’re putting mission-critical, sometimes confidential information, at the edge.”

Versa — which does nearly 100 percent of its business today through the channel — on Tuesday revealed feedback from its SASE partners and customers that confirmed the vendor’s integrated SASE architecture is not only improving security and performance, but it’s also shaving costs by up to 80 percent compared to competitive solutions that require adding SASE. Deployment time is also cut significantly when compared to competing-but-separate SD-WAN, security, and routing solutions that have to be cobbled together.

[Related: Versa Networks Introduces SASE, Secure SD-WAN Service For Remote Workers: Exclusive]

Specifically, users of Versa’s Single-Pass Parallel Processing architecture found in the VOS (Versa Operating System) are receiving a comprehensive integration of SASE networking and security elements in a single software image. This includes including SD-WAN, routing, Next Generation Firewall, Secure Web Gateway, private access, anti-virus and anti-malware, role-based access control, and user and entity behavior analytics, according to the San Jose, Calif.-based provider.

The vendor’s Versa Concerto and Versa Titan offerings can handle orchestration needs for a SASE deployment, which can often take up to two weeks for competing SASE solutions, according to Versa’s customer and partner feedback. The SASE specialist said that one customer that provided feedback responded that Versa’s solutions reduced deployment time of the security and networking implementations needed for SASE down to 12 minutes with Versa SASE zero-touch provisioning.

At a time when smaller remote offices and teleworkers need secure connectivity, Versa SASE is offering consistent SASE security policies across all branches and individual users, Versa’s partners and customers said.

Versa partner Orion’s clients, who once largely operated out of a centralized office, are now scattered in different locations with many remote employees. Business is being pushed to home offices, smaller satellite offices, or reconfigured spaces, Guerrero said.

“You have to have a secure access edge to support and monitor all the data that is happening at the edge,” he said. ”Where the move to the cloud was a slow, iceberg-moving shift, now [that transition] has to be done. It’s a critical decision on the roadmap, and if you haven’t started, you have to start now. It’s about improving security for that application that the user has run without thinking twice at the office -- it has to be super-secured remotely.”

Versa’s SASE architecture is “self-contained” compared to competing solutions that have 3-4 different components, all of which require management and integration efforts from customers and channel partners, Guerrero said. ”If I’m able to provision all of that though a single plane or interface, that makes administration that much easier, and also allows for cloud expansion,” he said.

Gartner’s three-year-old Magic Quadrant for WAN Edge Infrastructure report included Versa for the first two years as a Visionary. The vendor in 2020 moved into the Leader quadrant thanks to its strong focus on combining SD-WAN with other branch networking functions, including routing and security, according to Gartner.

Versa in January unveiled the Versa ACE -- Accelerate, Captivate, Engage -- Partner Program on Tuesday for VARs, MSPs, and service providers.